


watch the walls instead

by bawling



Series: 1989 [1]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-08 16:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14697894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bawling/pseuds/bawling
Summary: Bill Denbrough is starting to forget. Richie Tozier wants. Eddie Kaspbrak has bad timing.





	watch the walls instead

**Author's Note:**

> ariana grande voice and what about it
> 
> come yell at me [@butcheleven](http://butcheleven.tumblr.com)

_Monday you can hold your head_  
_Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed_  
_Or Thursday watch the walls instead_

*

**October 1989**

Bill Denbrough has nightmares.

Sometimes he dreams of killing Georgie. He knows it wasn’t really his brother, that putting that bullet in his brain wasn’t real, but that doesn’t make the guilt less real. It doesn’t stop him seeing Georgie’s body, mutilated and possessed, limbs tearing from the inside out. Sometimes he just sees Georgie’s corpse, sees the jagged, round bullet wound in the center of his forehead.

Some nights he doesn’t dream of Georgie. Some nights are filled with copper-red locks cropped close to seashell ears, to the slender slope of a pale neck or a freckled temple. He misses and aches and yearns and forgets. He begs to feel the familiar tingle of mouths touching and wakes up sticky in his pajama pants.

Sometimes Bill doesn’t know which dream is worse.

It’s Thursday when he’s woken up by the soft sound of someone knocking on his bedroom door. It’s late afternoon, around 4:30 Bill guesses by the way a beam of weak sunlight hits the center of his Gremlins poster on the far wall. He doesn’t bother to check the wristwatch sitting on his bedside table.

He hears the knock again, louder this time.

“I’m not h-h-hungry, mom.”

His voice sounds thin in the quiet room. He hears the handle on the door turn behind him and he sits up, expecting to argue his way out of another TV dinner, but it isn’t his mother in the doorway. It’s a five foot nothing mop of black-brown curls with thick glasses wrapped up in a wet, yellow raincoat, backpack slung over his right shoulder and a thick stack of papers in the crook of his left arm.

Bill frowns.

“R-r-richie?”

Richie shuffles forward and pulls the door shut behind him. He stands awkwardly at the door, timid in a way Bill can’t remember ever seeing him. He shrugs his narrow shoulders and a few droplets of water shake onto the floor.

“Jesus, don’t act so glad to see me.”

Bill watches as Richie starts to wrestle himself out of his raincoat before remembering that he’s still wearing his backpack. He dumps his stack of papers to the floor, followed swiftly by the backpack and coat, and saunters over towards the foot of Bill’s bed. He climbs up and sits at Bill’s feet, his socks disappearing into an ocean of lumpy comforter.

“Sorry about the homework, it was the only way I could make it past your mom.”

Bill’s gaze follows Richie’s hand to where it gestures vaguely towards the now damp and crumpled papers piled up under his bag and coat.

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t a guy visit his buddy who’s fallen off the face of the planet for the past week?”

Bill quirks his eyebrows. Richie gives a defeated sigh.

“Alright, fine. _Christ_  Bill, we haven’t heard from you in days. We were worried. We figured someone better check in on you, so I volunteered. Thought you might need some cheering up.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Richie plays absently with a stray thread in the comforter. He looks nervous. Bill gets the feeling that Richie doesn’t like seeing him like this. Which is exactly why he didn’t want any of the Losers here. Doesn’t want them to feel like he’s losing it, becoming less than they need him to be.

“You guys don’t need to be wuh-worried.”

Richie looks unconvinced.

“H-honest, Richie. I’m just—I’ve just been feeling t-tuh-tired. You know, after everything.”

It isn’t really a lie. It’s just less than the whole truth. Richie’s watching him with an expression that says he isn’t in the mood to go fishing for whatever it is that Bill is hiding from him. Bill feels a cold thread of guilt twist in his chest.

“Sure, I get it.”

Richie’s voice is tight. He withdraws his hand from the frayed edge of the comforter, pushes himself onto his knees, and starts to move backwards off the edge of the bed.

“I better go. I’ll tell the others you’re just _tired_. See you never.”

He’s leaning down to grab his wet coat off the rug. Bill climbs out of bed, his legs shaking from underuse. He stumbles over to Richie, catching his hand just as he moves it to open the bedroom door. Richie looks over his shoulder at him, his mouth open and eyebrows knitted with confusion.

“I don’t want to fight.” It’s the truth. Richie sucks in his bottom lip and nods. “Wuh-will you stay with me?”

Bill feels the cool air of the room touching his bare legs and realizes he’s in nothing but a t-shirt and briefs. He wills himself not to blush by telling himself they’ve seen each other in less. It doesn’t really work.

“What about your mom?”

Bill shrugs. He hears the faint tinkling of the piano from the sitting room downstairs and he’s pretty sure she’s already forgotten that Richie is here. But Bill knows it’s not something Richie would want to hear, even if it doesn’t mean anything. Bill is invisible here, too.

He takes a step back towards his bed and tugs Richie’s hand. Richie follows him tentatively, watches him climb back into bed and scoot to the far end, making room for them to lie side by side. Richie’s chapped pink lips are gaping slightly when Bill looks back, like he doesn’t know he’s doing it. He sets his glasses next to Bill’s wristwatch on the nightstand, then tugs off his sweater and jeans. The mattress dips as Richie climbs into the empty space beside Bill, his socked feet brushing against Bill’s calves as he fidgets his way under the blanket.

Then things go still.

Bill isn’t sure how long they stay like that, facing one another in silence, just looking. Both of them stuck in their own thoughts. The last thing Bill remembers is the splash of freckles across the bridge of Richie’s pale nose and the thick fan of his eyelashes brushing his cheeks. Bill’s never noticed them before.

He’s still thinking about them as he fades back into uneasy sleep.

*

Bill Denbrough has a nice face.

Richie isn’t sure how long he spent watching Bill sleep. Maybe hours. Maybe days. It was after dark when he fell asleep, tracing the soft lines of Bill’s nose and jaw with his eyes. He would’ve happily looked forever if the world worked that way, here in the comforting warmth of Bill’s bedroom, away from everything and everyone. Even Eddie. Especially Eddie.

Bill’s face isn’t so nice at the moment, actually. It’s twisted up in some tug-o-war between fear and rage. His body jerks violently, blind limbs thrashing in random directions. Richie yelps awake when one of Bill’s knees makes contact with his balls.

“Fuck, _Bill_. Christ, wake up. Wake _up_.”

Richie reaches out a hand and brings it down hard over Bill’s left cheek, where his head is twisting around on his striped pillow case. Bill’s eyes fly open and lock onto Richie’s face. He looks wild and confused. Richie knows that look. He’s had the dreams, too. Bill’s a deer in the deadlights.

“You kicked my dick, asshole.”

Bill’s mouth looks like it’s trying to make its way around an apology but nothing comes out. Maybe he’s stuttering in his brain, Richie wonders. Maybe he’s just fucking scared.

Richie reaches his hand out again and puts it on Bill’s chest. There's warmth radiating up from under his worn white t-shirt. He feels Bill’s heart pounding under his fingertips, feels his shallow breathing start to slow. Fine strands of his brown hair are sticking to his sweaty forehead. The skin of his cheek has started to go pink where it made contact with Richie’s palm.

It reminds Richie of two winters ago, before Georgie went missing. The three of them had gone snowshoeing one Saturday just before Christmas. They’d waddled around the woods for hours with Georgie trailing after them, trussed up in ten pounds of down and cotton and rubber. When the snow had finally soaked through to their socks, they ran back to Bill’s house, stripped down to their long johns, and sipped hot cocoa, their cheeks stained pink by the cold still clinging to their clammy skin.

Now they’re facing one another, wrapped up in Bill’s lumpy comforter, wearing nothing but their undershirts and briefs. Things haven’t changed much. Except that they have. A lot.

“Did—did you see it?”

Richie tries to make his voice sound normal but the words come out as barely more than a whisper. It’s more like screaming than when he’s as loud as he can possibly be. It’s a vulnerable thing, quietness.

Bill shakes his head. There’s a long pause before he answers.

“Georgie.”

Richie’s hand is still on Bill’s chest and he can feel the vibration of his voice more so than he can hear it. Bill’s voice is always quiet. Everything he does has a quietness to it. Richie wishes he had it, whatever it is inside him that makes Bill quiet. He wants it more than he wants to breathe.

He moves his hand to Bill’s forehead and smooths his hair back into place. His lips are crimson and swollen from where Richie guesses he’s been chewing on them in his sleep. Bill Denbrough has a damn nice face. Even after he knees you in the balls.

“Are you gonna tell me?”

Bill closes his eyes and shakes his head again.

“Well, will you at least tell me why you’ve been shut up in here all goddamn week?”

There’s a long moment of silence. Richie’s afraid Bill is going to make him play the stupid guessing game he plays when he gets stuck in his own head, but then he answers.

“I’m st-starting to f-f-fu-forget,” Bill’s eyes shut tighter, like even saying the words out loud takes effort. It makes Richie want to cover his ears. “When I s-s-sleep, I can s-s-s-see them.”

“You mean Georgie?”

“A-and—”

“Bev. You miss her.” Bill nods. “Me too.”

Richie watches his eyes dart back and forth, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure how. Richie gives his arm a little pinch and he spits it out.

“We kissed.”

The words hang in the air like a confession. In a way, it feels like one, even though they both know it’s not. It makes Richie’s whole body hurt to imagine it. He isn’t jealous, or not exactly. He doesn’t know what the hell it is but he _wants_ it.

“I don't know, maybe it was in a d-d-dream.”

“Do you love her?”

“Maybe.” Bill hesitates before he seems to make up his mind. “Yes. But luh-love you, too. All of you. That’s why I h-h-have to remember. I—is it possible to love six people at the s-s-same time?”

“Only if you’re a fucking pervert.”

Bill smiles and Richie feels a burst of heat in the pit of his stomach. He knows what Bill means even if neither of them know how to say it out loud. He’s been trying to put a name to it all summer, to this exact feeling in this exact moment. Maybe there isn’t a way to say it because there isn’t anything else like it in the world. Maybe there never has been anything like this, and there never will be again.

It’s quiet between them for a long time. It’s that goddamned vulnerable kind of quiet that Bill is so good at and Richie is absolutely shit at. He catches himself holding his breath while Bill looks at him from under his brown eyelashes. Light is starting to creep through the bedroom windows. It's casting a shadow over Bill’s face and the hollow of his throat, the dip of his collarbone that’s showing from under the stretched-out collar of his t-shirt.

_Fucking do it. Don’t be a pussy, Tozier._

Richie shuffles so that he and Bill are sharing the same pillow, the tips of their noses barely touching. Before he can overthink it, he leans forward and presses his lips against Bill’s. The kiss only lasts a second but it’s soft and warm. He feels his pulse racing when he pulls back and sees Bill’s wide eyes.

Richie shifts the blanket so that it covers his head. _Jesus_ , he wishes it would choke the _life_ out of him. He holds his breath and savors the last moments of Bill’s familiar smell on the sheets before being called a fucking queer. A dirty faggot. Before Bill throws him out and he’s forced to walk home with no shoes.

Bill shifts beside him and the blanket is drawn slowly back from his face. He feels a warm hand touching the back of his neck. He opens his eyes. Bill is looking down at him from where he’s propped up on his elbow. He doesn’t look angry or grossed out, just surprised. Richie doesn’t even realize he’s crying until Bill’s fingers wipe away a stray tear from where it’s making its way into the cavity of his ear.

“It’s _okay_ , Rich.”

Richie opens his mouth to ask what exactly Bill means by okay. Is it a let’s-pretend-this-never-happened okay? Or is it an I’m-sorry-that-you’re-queer okay? Or an I-love-you-but-not-in-that-way okay? Or a you-must-be-out-of-your-fucking-mind okay?

He doesn't get the chance to find out before Bill’s mouth is on his again.

Richie buries his face into the warm skin of Bill’s neck and focuses on the feeling of air filling and leaving his lungs, steadier and steadier, until he feels nothing. Tears are still trailing from the corners of his eyes like a leaky faucet. Bill’s arms are tight around him, until they both start to loosen against one another, less and less aware of the morning light filtering in through the northeast windows.

Just before the last wave takes him back into sleep, Richie hears himself whisper against Bill’s damp skin.

“Don’t tell Eddie.”

*

Bill Denbrough is still sleeping.

According to his mother, at least. Eddie checks his watch from where he’s standing on Bill’s front porch. It’s 7:34, and it’s going to take him another ten minutes to make it to school. That leaves him with less than ten minutes before he’s late. He’s about to give it up as a bad job, making a mental note to punch Richie for not bothering to call and tell him he wouldn’t be home to ride to school with him this morning. But something behind the porch catches his eye.

It’s Richie’s bike, laying haphazardly on top of Silver.

“Can I go up and see him before I leave? I—” Eddie catches the front door with his fingers as Mrs. Denbrough is already retreating back to her piano room. “—I have to ask him a question about our English assignment.”

He doesn’t bother to untie his muddy sneakers before he’s on the stairs, palm sliding against the smooth mahogany of the railing. He stops at the landing and listens. There’s no sound of the shower running from the bathroom, no sound of voices from behind Bill’s door. He glances towards Georgie’s room even though he knows it’s empty.

Eddie knocks lightly at Bill’s door, hand hovering over the knob, waiting for permission to enter. Permission doesn’t come. He clasps the knob and pushes the door silently open, moving himself to slide easily through the small opening and pulling the door shut behind him.

Bill’s room is flooded in cloudy light. His room has a _feeling_ and it hits Eddie like a wall. It’s soft carpet between your toes. It’s whispering even when you know you don’t have to be quiet. It’s familiar toys cluttering every surface in the same way that you sometimes catch old memories out of the corner of your mind’s eye.

It’s the same feeling as Bill the person. Safe.

Eddie can see the shape of Bill’s body facing away from him beneath his comforter, the rhythm of his hidden ribcage expanding and retracting in even time. He starts to move towards the bed but steps on something that crinkles underfoot. He’s standing in a scattered pile of papers. He scoops them up and arranges them into a stack, flipping through what he recognizes as the makeup homework they sent with Richie yesterday after school.

Richie hadn’t called him last night. Usually that means he forgot or got distracted. Or that one of his parents had grounded him from using the phone again.

Eddie frowns and looks around the floor again. There’s a familiar raincoat crumpled on the ground. And there’s Richie’s backpack, just to the left of his foot. He hugs the papers tighter to his chest and steps as quietly as he can manage till he’s at the foot of Bill’s bed.

It’s _Rich_.

Bill is curled up against Richie’s back and his arms are wrapped around his waist. His face is buried in the curls at the base of Richie’s neck, like he fell asleep to the musky scent of Richie’s hair. Eddie knows that smell. It’s almost permanently soaked into his own pillows now that Richie has been sneaking through his window practically every other night.

Eddie has never even considered sharing his bed with Richie. It doesn’t seem practical at all. It seems sweaty and claustrophobic. He’s seen Richie sleep first hand and he _knows_ he’s a sprawler. He finds it hard to believe that this is the same nuisance who wakes up stretched out like a greasy starfish on his bedroom floor most mornings.

One side of his face is mushed into Bill’s pillow, mouth hanging slightly open. His arms are tangled up with Bill’s where they’re lying across his belly. His hair is terribly messed up, but it looks soft.

Something unpleasant tugs at Eddie’s guts.

He can’t understand why it makes him angry to see them like this. They’d all been worried about Bill, and Richie had offered to take care of him. He’s doing exactly what they’d asked him to do. He’s being a good friend. It makes Eddie want to punch his stupid face in.

He checks his watch. It’s 7:41. He can’t be late for first period—Mrs. Gershwin is giving a geography quiz and Eddie can’t afford to be on her shit list. He leaves the straightened-out stack of makeup homework on the nightstand next to Bill’s watch and Richie’s glasses. He looks back over his shoulder just before he closes the door behind him.

He has a sinking feeling that he won’t be able to think about geography at all.


End file.
